When the Kentucky House of Representatives convenes on Jan. 3, Larry Clark, the fiery and combative former electrician and union man who learned his bargaining skills in Louisville's West End where he was raised, won't be there for the first time since 1984.

"In hindsight, I couldn't have picked a better time to leave," said Clark, of Okolona, who announced his retirement two years ago and, unlike many of his fellow Democrats who were ousted in November's landslide election that turned the chamber over to the GOP, is quitting on his own terms. "I like to get things done, and that will be hard to do now."

Clark, in many ways, has been the most influential Louisvillian in the Kentucky House of Representatives over the last generation.

The last day of the 1988 legislature found Larry Clark, left, D-Louisville, and Lonnie Napier, R-Lancaster, with time to put their feet up after business was taken care of in the Kentucky House Chamber. AP photo

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Few bills that affected the state's largest city since Clark moved into Democratic leadership in 1993 don't bear his imprint.

He steered the legislation that merged Louisville and Jefferson County government early in the century and found money to expand the Home of the Innocents.

"We would never have had the opportunity to create a new city in 2003 without his leadership," said former Mayor Jerry Abramson, who pushed for the merger.

Clark was the University of Louisville's most ardent supporter in the legislature, pushing through budgets that often included bonding for the school's top building priorities.

And when a program to provide advanced science and math classes for teenage parents in Jefferson County was about to run out in 2007, Clark went to work and found the money to continue it.

He was among the legislature's most strident pro-union voices and fought to protect money for University Hospital to reimburse it for treating people who didn't have health insurance.

He supported expanded gaming but preferred legislation that would have allowed a downtown casino. And he was a strong proponent of liquor laws that protected mom and pop liquor stores.

But he'll be most remembered for his bluntness, which sometimes caused him problems even in his own party and with some of those with whom he agreed on issues.

Like in 1998, after he voted to send an anti-abortion bill to the House Budget Committee, which effectively killed it, he drew the ire of longtime Kentucky Right to Life executive director Margie Montgomery, who fumed that Clark, a Roman Catholic, had violated his pledge to support anti-abortion legislation.

"Margie Montgomery just acts like every time you do something, if you don't do it her way, you're against her and you're against her legislation,'' Clark shot back in an interview at the time. "We don't come up here just to serve Margie Montgomery ... I'm a pro-life candidate, but she irritates me.''

But it was that type of bluntness that Clark said helped him get things done - something on which he prides himself - even though he made enemies along the way.

"Some people didn't like how I did things, but they liked the results," Clark said in a recent interview.

Rep. Jim Wayne, who often disagreed with Clark because of his bare-knuckled style, noted that Clark got results but said those results could have been achieved without intimidating his fellow legislators.

"Larry Clark is a complicated man who's actually done a lot of great things for Kentucky and Metro Louisville," Wayne said.

"His methods were learned in the rough and tumble working-class neighborhood where he grew up," said Wayne. "He's streetwise and he fights like a street-fighter and he has gotten his way through intimidation, threats and arm-twisting,"

Former Gov. Paul Patton said that Clark was a key ally in the years leading up to his election as governor and then as he worked to push bills through the legislature. He said Clark's bluntness is what he likes about Clark.

"I ran for lieutenant governor in 1987 and lost badly in Jefferson County," said Patton, who soon after his loss began working to build a coalition of supporters in Louisville in preparation for his 1991 run for that office. "Larry was one of the very first pillars of our support in the Democratic Party in Louisville and the labor movement there."

When Clark said he supported you, Patton said it you knew you were going to benefit. "If he was for you, he would get you some votes," Patton said. "A lot of people tell you they're for you but don't do anything because they don't want to make people supporting other candidates mad."

In the legislature, Patton said Clark's bluntness and honesty were refreshing. "If he agreed with you, he'd let you know. If he didn't he'd tell you that, too," Patton said. "He was a guy that you'd want to be in a foxhole with, I'll put it that way."

Clark said his earliest remembrances of politics were walking door-to-door with his precinct captain-mother in the Victory Park neighborhood.

He continued in politics as an adult after moving to Okolona. He, like his mother, became a precinct captain and worked to elect other politicians before he ran for office in a 1984 special election to fill a seat vacated by Republican Harold Haering, who had moved up to the state Senate.

In his early years, he faced tough races against Republican Bob Fulkerson but since then has won easily in virtually every race - the exception being in 2004 when Republican Trace Chesser and spent thousands of dollars trying to beat him.

Chesser relentlessly attacked Clark, claiming that he favored gay marriage based on his opposition to a U.S. constitutional amendment to ban it. Clark, who had twice voted against gay marriage, opposed the amendment, saying the decision should be left up to the states. Chesser also criticized Clark on abortion and blamed him for a high number of prostitution arrests that took place in the House district.

In 2010, the Jefferson County Teachers Association broke ranks with other unions and backed Clark's opponent, Republican Brian Simpson, because Clark had supported changes to teachers health insurance programs. Clark still won.

Was there hell to pay? "Oh, yeah," said Brent McKim, president of the JCTA. "To Larry's credit, we eventually moved past that ... There was nothing punitive legislatively that he did to us, but it was a lasting sore spot."

While tough and blunt he could also be a gregarious backslapper, greeting people with his signature nickname for everyone -- "Podge."

Clark won by outworking his opponents. He walked door-to-door, talking to voters, rather than relying heavily on slickly produced advertisements. He says he's also never run a negative ad against an opponent.

He told voters that he had never missed a vote in the legislature. Rob Weber, a spokesman for the legislative research commission, said that claim couldn't be verified without researching every one of the thousands of votes taken during Clark's three decades in office.

At 71-years-old, and with hip problems that keep him from knocking on as many doors as he once did in his numerous campaigns, Clark decided four years ago that he'd step aside following this year's election. He didn't run for re-election to House leadership where he was the longtime speaker pro tem following the 2014 and he figured that leaving in a presidential election year, with increased Democratic turnout, would be the best way for him to ensure that the state's 46th District would remain Democratic.

He was right. His hand-picked successor, Alan Gentry, won an easy victory.

It was one of the few bright spots for Democrats who watched as 17 incumbents got beaten as they handed control of the House to the GOP the first time in nearly 100 years.

Clark said he's glad to be leaving because he wouldn't function well in a House in which Republicans were in control.

Besides playing more golf, Clark said he plans to get involved volunteering, perhaps for some of the organizations that he helped while in the legislature like the Teenage Parenting Program or the Home of the Innocents. "There's a lot of good nonprofits out there," he said. "But I don't want to stop. I've got to find something to do."